With Power6+ systems in the market and Power7 machinery slated for next year - and with IBM's supply chain expert (Bob Moffatt) in charge of its Systems and Technology Group - you can't expect older gear to stay in the product line for very long.
And so it comes as little surprise that IBM is already starting to wind down some …

COMMENTS

Processor activations

I'm pretty worried if IBM are withdrawing processor activations for some of the models. What this means is that if you have, for example 13 processors activated out of 16, that come 1st July, even though you have the processors physically present in your system, you will never be able to use them.

Call me a cynic, but this looks like a move designed either to make sure that customers activate (and pay for) un-needed processors before they are required (a money grab), or after 1st July, that they are forced to upgrade to new hardware before they actually exceed the capabilities of their existing stuff.

And as far as IBM is concerned, it costs almost nothing apart from the cost of collecting the payment to activate a processor. Maybe there is scope for working out how to jailbreak processors on IBM tin.

Processor activations

Dumping these on older hardware makes a mockery of on-demand processing. How big a difference to their supply chain will this make? I guess the only hope is enough big customers put pressure on them to reconsider as (I presume) its impossible to simulate an activation key.

If you already bought 'em, you can activate 'em

You can still activate any inactive processors you already have. And they did teach me 'don't be draconian' in customer value prop school. ;-) We are withdrawing some processor upgrades within a model of some of the POWER5 systems where we offered them, but if they already have processors that can be activated with Capacity on Demand (COD), that's still supported. We also stopped supporting activations during the order process (you can still however, activate the processors after you get the box), for some of the first POWER6 systems which have been superseded by newer/faster models, but again, if a client owns inactive processors on an existing Power5 or Power6 box, those are unaffected. Hope this helps! (Scott Handy, VP WW Strategy, Marketing, Sales Support - Power Systems, IBM).